this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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Look up a video in Shenzhen or Chongqing. Everything looks 2 decades out, and the giant crystal skyscrapers light up different colors. Sometimes the whole thing is a TV.

China surpassed USAmerica in GDP already, but it doesn't look close to tied in development and advanced technologies.

The trains there go hundreds of miles in less than an hour, you could commute across the country every day.

Meanwhile in America the "middle class" is struggling to have some walls and a roof. Record debt and crumbling infrastructure. How is all of this ignored and not talked about everywhere?

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[–] CriticalResist8@hexbear.net 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Here in Europe we don't build new buildings, but instead reuse ones from around the 1960s (Marshall Plan and all that). To me it's always screamed "we're too poor to build new stuff". And you know, old buildings can only get older, at some point you're gonna have to make new ones...

it's like we like living in the past it's so unreal.

[–] EnsignRedshirt@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That’s how I feel about transit infrastructure in North America. We can’t be bothered to spend the required money or effort to solve transit issues properly, but we accept ever-higher costs for constantly having to maintain and build car infrastructure because you can always kick that can down the road, so to speak.

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's pathetic. I was in Minneapolis when the I-35 bridge just up and collapsed. Majorish city, population of millions, I-35 is one of the country's major transit cooridors, and this giant fucking bridge just folds one day.

[–] v_krishna@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Minneapolis has like 400K people. Even if you add St Paul you still are only up to 750K. The full metro area is 3.7M but that's including a LOT of decidedly not urban areas

Edit not saying that means their bridges should collapse but it is definitely not comparable to any cities in Asia.

[–] ChapoKrautHaus@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

Here in Europe we don't build new buildings

This is a 100% spot on take. I live in one of the supposedly "richest cities of Europe" and every damn building was constructed between 1950 and 1970 (much thanks to the Royal Air Force bomber command).

Nobody builds any new shit, it's just the rent goes up and the cars in front of the buildings get bigger and bigger. I guess that's progress or something.

[–] Mardoniush@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Having buildings that can last long term is mostly a good thing (The 1920s construction in Vienna for example is great.) But I can't imagine that something thrown up in 3 months in 1952 is going to be particularly well built.